Autonomic Computing

Current IT Unemployment

This author has problems with the future projections and figures issued by the Bureau of Labor discussed earlier in this chapter. At present, we have widespread unemployment in the IT industry. Unemployment in the IT profession reached 6 percent in 2003, and the media is reporting “unprecedented” levels of unemployment for a career path that, until recently, was a sure path to a well-paying job. IT unemployment rates were as low as 1.2 percent in 1997, but rose sharply to 4.3 percent in 2002—see Figure 6.3.

Figure 6.3. A graph showing IT jobless rates in the United States from 1989–2001. Source: U.S. Department of Labor—Bureau of Labor Statistics

The growth in unemployment over the past five years in the IT industry can ...